One Month
by ShinobiCyrus
Summary: Thirty-one challenges, thirty-one days, thirty-one stories.
1. Day One: Bruises

**Danny Phantom is the property of Nickelodeon and Butch Hartman. As am I neither, I do not own it.**

'Mr. Modesty', Tuck would always laugh at gym class.

It started as modesty- the awkward teenage self-consciousness of undressing around other guys. Ever since he became Phantom, his quirk became a little more practical.

He fought ___ghosts _on a daily basis. In almost every fight he'd been blasted, hit, punched, thrown into walls- accidentally flown into those walls himself a few times. Superpowers or no, the damage showed.

A black eye could always be explained away by Dash, hell, sometimes that was even the truth, but there was no way he'd be able to explain the dozen or so bruises on his shoulders, back, his ribs, arms, legs; a kaleidoscope of harsh red, blotchy purples, sickly yellows all various stages of healing. If anyone besides Tuck saw him, especially a teacher, there'd be a lot of concerned, annoying, well-meaning questions. Phone calls would be made.

So he always waited until Tucker was the last one to leave the locker room, undressed sorely, winced at the fresh damage, and enjoyed a couple minutes of solitude in the showers, soaking his aches under hot water.

**This is the first of a series of one-shots I did for the PhannieMay challenge on Tumblr. They started short and just kept getting longer every time. I want to tweak them a little and avoid just posting them all at once, but pretty much everything is done so you can expect very regular postings until all thirty-one are up. **

**Reviews always appreciated, thanks! **


	2. Day Two: Flying

There were some days it was just too much.

The constant threat of ghosts, his abysmal grades, a fight with Sam, Jazz being too overbearing, his parents testing out their latest, graphically ghost-fatal invention in the living room; some days Danny just needed ___out_.

So he went flying.

His favorite thing to do was to climb up to the roof of the ops center, look out at the skyline and down at the pavement below and just…let himself fall over the ledge. It was hard at first- like those trust experiments with a buddy. Except he had to train himself to trust Phantom. When his feet left the ground and he was well and truly tumbling off the rooftop, he'd Will the bright bands of light to sweep his body and suddenly the great weight people aren't aware of vanished and he'd start rising, up and over the ledge and watch everything just shrink below him.

Sometimes he'd fly low and fast, a missile of white and black darting among, between, and through buildings, racing fast enough to leave everything behind.

Other times he just flew as high as he could, where he could stretch his arms out to the wideness of the sky with the feel of nothing below his feet and everything around. Then he'd look down at the model buildings and tiny toy cars that was supposed to be Amity Park- his whole ___life_- and feel this light, free feeling in his chest.

One night when he couldn't get to sleep, when even flying wasn't enough, he flew to the rich part of town, floated outside a particular window, and knocked.

Sam opened the window in black PJs, tired-eyed enough to not be sure if he was a dream. "Danny? It's two in the morning."

"I know. Wanna go flying?"

Without hesitation, "I'll get my coat."


	3. Day Three: Favorite Ship

He's known Sam for eight years. For a fourteen year old, that's a lifetime.

He can barely remember a time when he didn't know her. She's just always been a part his life like an immutable fact. It's been so long he couldn't even say exactly when he first met her.

Lately he's been thinking more about her. A lot more. These weird moments come when they're walking home from school, lounging in her basement watching a movie, or panting and gathered around the still-smoking Fenton thermos- he _l____ooks _at her and wonders when they stopped being kids.

Back in second grade when she was a little girl fuming over the pink flowered dress her mom forced her to wear. Then at recess she was the grinning girl in a mud-splattered dress, knees scraped like battle scars from joining all the boys in King of the Hill. She was always the King.

Meeting his parents for the first time, she looked up at his huge orange father in awe and frowned with confusion at his mom- a woman in a hazmat suit who kissed her son's cheek, offered them cookies, and then cleared off the table and so she could disassemble an experimental ecto-blaster. Their first moment alone she blurted, "Your parents are so cool!"

Their first fight. He doesn't remember what it was about anymore but they didn't speak to each other for a week, and after a miserable weekend they go to each other Monday morning before class and interrupted each other trying to say, "I'm sorry."

Fifth grade, Dash punching him in the face after school. Tucker fainted from the blood-faucet his nose became, pouring into the spreading stain of red snow. Sam, completely unfazed, bloodied her hands to make sure it wasn't broken, gave it ice, and made him tilt his head back.

Her grandpa, her ___zayde_, dying when she was nine. Danny stayed quiet, held her, and let her cry for an hour, never caring she was soaking his shirt with tears and snot.

At their last slumber party together when they were ten, because Sam's parents thought she was getting too old have sleepovers at a boy's house. And when he didn't get why, she shook her head and smiled, "You're so clueless sometimes, Danny."

Sam grumbling about bra-shopping with her mom. A fat gland in Danny's head wriggled out a chemical and he looked at her, seeing something for the first time.

When, flushed and red-faced, he asked Jazz to take her shopping and ___never _tell her that he suggested it.

That first day in sixth grade, when she walked up to Danny and Tucker in the morning wearing black boots, skirt, an grunge rock t-shirt and asked "I'm trying a new look, what d'ya think?"

When they were twelve and she was the first girl he ever kissed.

The Ghost Portal. The supernova of green and the agony of being unmade and the only two coherent thoughts he could form were ___I don't want to die _and her face.

Flying them through the air as Phantom, enjoying that weightless joy of being tethered to nothing but the feel of her hand grasping his.

Seeing her kiss Gregor. That physical pain like a stomach ache and a heart attack and being strangled all at the same time.

Just last night on patrol, she rides in with a Fenton wrist-blaster, takes out two ghost-bats he hadn't seen behind him, and traps a screaming, gelatinous ecto-monstrosity in the thermos single-handed.

She shoots him the same smug grin as the muddy girl that was King of the Hill and right there he realized he was in love with her.


	4. Day Four: Crossover

**Danny Phantom/Supernatural: _"Shut up it was like five minutes!"_**

"Salt," Sam repeated. "They trapped you with _salt_."

Danny sighed. "Yeah."

"And it actually worked. ___Salt__._"

"I know!" he threw up his arms. "Wait until I tell my parents their years of ghost-research were outdone by a condiment."

"So what then?" Tucker grinned. "They tried to exercise you with a blend of herbs and spices?"

"That's the thing, they weren't really sure what to do with me. It's like the fact that I wasn't acting like some murder-happy poltergeist threw them off, or something. The big one started acting all nice trying to convince me that I was 'dead', and 'confused' and I should try to 'move on' or some other such nonsense."

"If you do cross over, could you come back and tell us which afterlife it is?" Sam asked. "Because I got money on _Valhalla_."

"It's not funny Sam, these guys were serious nutters! They were talking about digging up my corpse so they could ___salt and burn my bones_. I'm just lucky they decided to leave the room to talk so I could slip away."

"Incidentally," she said, "how long did it take for you to figure out you could just turn back into a human and step out of the salt?"

"Longer than I'd rather admit."


	5. Day Five: Vlad

Sharing a dorm room with Jack, Vlad knew keeping the clutter and expired ham at bay was a losing battle. Between Maddie and him, at least they managed to keep their second-rate university lab neat enough to conduct their experiments.

"I'm not telling you to abandon your ghost research, Jack," Vlad said. "All I'm saying is that the proto-portal could be shelved temporarily for more…fruitful lines of research."

Maddie leaned forward on one of the uncomfortable metal lab chairs. "What are you suggesting, Vlad?"

"Your research on ectoplasm, for one. Two years ago it was an purely theoretical substance you proposed, and not only did you prove it ___exists _but you've been able to synthesize stable amounts of it for your experiments."

"And it makes a great nightlight!" Jack added.

Vlad sighed. "Yes, that it does. But can you imagine the applications if we figured out a way to cost-effectively convert ectoplasm into usable energy? We could end our dependence on oil! Build ecto-weapons that can give us an edge over the commies! The government would pay a fortune!"

"Not a chance, Vladdy," Jack crossed his arms. "Jack Fenton does not sell out to the Man! The quest of Science is its own reward! Even if the chairs here can't support my figure."

"Maddie," Vlad pleaded. "Make him see reason! With government funding, we could finally get out of this joke of a lab the university threw at us and start make real strides in our research."

"I understand where you're coming from, Vlad," Maddie said. "But I'm going to have to agree with Jack here. The Ghost Portal is the linchpin for all of our theories. If we managedto successfully breach the Ghost Zone and get a hold of a ___real ghost,_there's no telling the things we could learn!"

"But with government backing, our theories would finally be vindicated! All those people who sneered at our work and called us crackpots would finally have to respect us! No more being mocked by by the other graduate students. Or the professors. Or the cleaning staff!"

"Oh Vlad," Maddie said sympathetically. "I had no idea it bothered you that much."

"It's not me, Madeline. It's…it's _you_. You're far too gifted to go on unappreciated and unrecognized."

"That's sweet Vlad, really. But you and Jack are all the recognition I need."

"Yeah!" Jack said cheerfully, scooping Vlad close with one arm and a giggling Maddie with the other. "Chin up, V-Man! We don't need fame or fortune or even the respect of our peers! I've got my girl and my best bud- what more can a man want?"

—

Plasmius examined the ancient book carefully. Late nineteenth century, binding still intact, the cover was a little worse for wear, but the yellowed pages were in excellent condition. There were very few copies of Colum's ___Necromantic Geometries _that were ever printed, nevermind still surviving today. A rare tome in such good condition could easily fetch a quarter-million at the right auction.

It was also completely useless.

"No, no, no!" Vlad raved. "My instructions were for a first-edition manuscript!" The pair of identical ghosts wrapped in veils and bandages blinked at him uncomprehendingly. "This. Is. A. Reprint!" he threw the book through one of their heads. "What am I even paying you idiots for?!"

___"M'rkez-nai nao bi," _the one on the left pointed out.

"It's just an expression!"

___"Yb, Otop bi knga eto sv'lten-nim," _the other protested. ___"Obnar okt mz'kasch-ra."_

"Well ___of course _it's difficult to find! If I could order it on Amazon I wouldn't have to use a pair of spectral simpletons who can't even follow simple instructions!"

___"Tkunn, paschnar bi kurr?"_

"Because my time is far too valuable to be scouring dusty ruins! Just as _you_ are wasting my time at this very right moment."

___"Yb-"_

Vlad held up his hand and unleashed an a massive blast of ectoplasmic energy that rushed over the ghost on the left and vaporized him instantaneously. "Just as you wasted yet another second of my time doing ___that__,_" he told the smoking black scorch on the lab floor. The remaining ghost stared at him, wide-eyed and shaking. "Well what are you standing around for? I trust my instructions sank in properly, this time?"

___"Yvet, Kyrus Plasmius"_it bowed nervously, and sank down through the floor.

"'Master Plasmius'. I ___do _enjoy hearing that." Clapping his hands together, he called out. "Oh, MAD-I?"

A holographic projection of Madeline flickered to life next to him. "Systems online, lambchop."

"Be a dear and bring up my morning updates. Also some music- college playlist, track three."

"Of course, sweetheart," she smiled with programmed sweetness. Over a dozen monitors snapped on around the lab while David Bowie started playing through the speakers.

"Ah, the eighties: the height of music," Vlad said appreciatively. "Now, what's going on in the world of Me?"

"Vladco shares are up thirty points, beloved," MAD-I reported. "Oil prices are up an average of twenty cents due to the artificial shortage you created. Profits have increased six percent."

"Excellent. And what of my little side projects?"

"Duplicates Seven and Eight report success, though they had to abandon their hosts after they were arrested for insider trading. Estimated profits are twenty-seven-point-three million dollars U.S. Duplicate Eleven has called in and is now overshadowing the CEO of GreenVolt Inc."

"Have him sell the company to a Vladco subsidiary so we can liquidate its assets," he instructed. "And before I forget, who's riding around in that Senator from the Appropriations Committee?"

"Number Four, honeydew."

"Tell him to craft a bill awarding a new contract to Axiom Labs for anti-ghost research. I want to be able to control the flow of weapons and equipment those house-wrecking Guys in White have access to."

"Very crafty, you sexy genius, you!"

"Yes, yes, I know," Vlad adjusted his cape, preening. "Speaking of home-wreckers, how is our dear Daniel?"

"He received a C- on Tuesday's Algebra exam dear-heart, and was written up yesterday for, quote: _'interrupting a school assembly while dressed inappropriately,' _unquote."

Vlad raised an eyebrow. "Dressed inappropriately?"

"Apparently he somehow landed in a crowded auditorium while dressed in women's clothing."

"HA! Tell me there are pictures."

"Searching…I have located several posted on his classmates' meBook pages."

"Perfect. Add them to my favorites folder and bring up the Fenton cams."

The monitors switched from displaying stock prices and Danny's laughable grades to the feeds from the hidden cameras he had installed in every corner of Fenton Works. He found Maddie down in the lab, welding together another moronic invention of Jack's. He lost track of time, watching her. That look of concentration while the sparks of the blowtorch lit up her goggles. Even with the the soot and grease and dirt covering her, in that form-fitting jumpsuit she was still perfect.

___"I thought you died alone, a long long time ago,"_Bowie sang.

But when she finished welding, that idiot Jack came up and surprised her with a hug from behind. The sound was off, but he could see her mute laugh while Jack lifted her and she struggled playfully. Vlad grit his fangs.

___"Oh no, not me. I never lost control."_

When Jack kissed her, Vlad growled with rage and blasted the monitor wit his eyes.

MAD-I floated next to him, her look of concern suddenly seemed hollow to him. "Is everything alright, [TERM_OF_ENDEARMENT_42]?"

"Oh butter briskets, now I have to fix that, too!"

"Aw, it sounds like somebody skipped breakfast."

Vlad breathed out red mist and whirled around, coming face to face with a green-faced woman wearing a cafeteria worker's outfit and holding a serving tray. "It's the most important deal of the day, you know."

"You again?!" Vlad snapped. "How many times must I tell you to stop haunting my kitchen! I am in no mood for your- are those pancakes?"

"Blueberry," she presented the tray to him. Blueberry pancakes, orange juice, toast and jam, and-

"Wait- are those eggs?" he demanded. "Sunny-side up?! My doctor tells me to watch my cholesterol and you bring me egg yolks! I'm only supposed to have egg whites! Are you ___trying _to give me a stroke?!"

"Now, dearie-"

"WOMAN I WILL DESTROY YOU!" he howled, and started shooting superheated ectoplasm from his fingertips. The Lunch Lady cried out, dropped the tray, and fled out of the lab through his ghost portal. "AND TAKE YOUR EGGS OF DOOM WITH YOU!"

* * *

**I had fun with this one, if only to write Vlad as a creepy, petty, vindictive loon (which he is). The gibberish the ghosts were speaking is ghost-speak, a cool idea that came from a group of Danny Phantom phans on Tumblr, henceforth referred to as the Phandom. Lots of people have their own versions of the language, mine is a mix of Latin, Russian, German, Greek, and Japanese. I know, I know, I'm crazy.**

**If you're liking how things are going, please feed my fragile writer's ego with a review, I always appreciate them.**

**Thanks for reading!**

**-Cy**

**P.S, the song was David Bowie's _The Man Who Sold the World, _which I don't own. Obviously. **


	6. Day Six: Sewing- Girl Stuff

"I'm not sure about this, Dad…" Danny said hesitantly.

"Nonsense! No son of mine is going to fail Home Ec! It teaches you invaluable non-ghost related life skills that prepares you for the day you move out and start living on your own."

"But…sewing? Seriously? Can't I just ask Mom?"

"Your mother?" Jack laughed. _"____Sewing? _Why don't we just let her stick to what she does best: cooking, cleaning, and putting a superheated bolt of ectoplasm through a ghost's eye at three hundred yards. You know, girl stuff!"

Danny gulped and consciously made sure he didn't reach for his eye on reflex.

"Now Danny, sewing is an essential skill that helps a man fix his daughter's teddy bears, maintain his jumpsuits, or perform painful first aid at home!"

"Couldn't we just…talk about ghosts or something?"

Jack produced a small, homemade pillow embroidered with a ghost saying 'Boo'. "Don't worry son, we can do both! And once we finish your school assignment, I can teach you needlepoint- which is both artsy and relaxing!"

Hard as Danny exhaled, he still couldn't see his breath. ___Dammit._

_—_

"HA!" Tucker triumphed as they left Home Ec."A+ on my sewing project. And everybody laughed at me for knowing how to sew- well who's laughing now?"

"Still them, probably," Sam said, examining her crooked, decrepit black and violet pillow. "Lucky for me I got away with a C- by convincing Mrs. Economos I ___deliberately_made my pillow deformed and freakish. Perks of being the creepy goth girl."

"Y'know I could fix that for you, Sam," Tuck offered.

She protectively held it out of his reach. "No way, I like my mutant pillow. Hey Danny, how'd you do on yours?"

"I don't want to talk about it."


	7. Day Seven: Alternate Universe

_"__**Powerless"**_

___(Danny was never zapped by the ghost portal)_

"Danny, stop!" Tucker said.

Danny ignored him, grit his teeth, and gripped the railway tight as he limped painfully down the stairs to the lab.

Tucker followed right behind him, staying close but not _physically_ trying to stop him. Yet. "I'm serious man, you're gonna end up falling and break your neck!"

He made it down the last step and tried not to make it obvious he was leaning heavily on one of the lab tables trying to catch his breath. "Sam's in trouble, Tuck. I'm not just gonna sit around and do nothing."

"Dude, you weren't sitting around, you were laying. In bed. After that ghost cafeteria lady threw a ___stove_at you!"

"Yeah, and Sam-"

Tucker grabbed him by the shoulders and shook. "A ___stove_, Danny!"

"Wasn't a head injury, Tuck," he rapped his knuckles on his temple. "I remember it just fine."

"Oh, good, then maybe you remember the part when your parents told you to stay _here _while they went to go rescue Sam."

"Nah, that part's fuzzy," Danny brushed past him and started searching the tables and work-benches, clearing off paperwork and empty soda cans, overturning 'Best Mom' coffee mugs, spare parts, blueprints, old ham…

"Nothing, nothing, nothing, dammit!" he threw tray of beakers onto the floor and grabbed the table edge, squeezing hard.

Tucker approached him hesitantly. "Danny?"

"I can't do it, Tuck," he told the tabletop. "I can't just do nothing while my best friend's life is danger." He turned to him with desperate intensity. "Her ___life,_Tuck. I know you're scared, and so am I, but I'm more scared of losing her. I'm fucking terrified. So much I'd rather go out there and die doing something than be stuck here powerless for another second. And we both know that if you stayed here and something happened to her, you'd never be able to forgive yourself either."

The only other friend Danny had looked at him quietly for a long time before he slumped in defeat, breathing a resigned sigh. "Yeah, I know. You're right. But…I mean…what are we gonna do? We're two fourteen year-olds trying to fight a ___ghost__._ We're not exactly superheroes."

"We don't need to be," Danny said, running his hands slowly along the lab walls. "Now if I could just find my parents'…" one of his fingers found purchase on something that clicked. "There."

A section of the wall slid away, and Tucker gaped at the fully stocked rack of anti-ghost weapons. "That is…totally badass." Watching Danny experimentally heft an ecto-rifle, a thought occurred to him. "Wait. Do you actually know how to ___use_these things?"

Somehow, that simple question was the one that actually gave Danny pause. "Uh…well…not exactly. My parents didn't exactly give me the crash course, but all those years of blasting aliens at the arcade have to count for something, right?"

Tucker took off his glasses to rub his eyes. "We are basing our rescue plan on our wasted adolescence. I never thought my death would be so ironic. Or soonish."

"Less whining, more loading," Danny snapped, arranging their arsenal of ghost weapons on the cleared counter. "We gotta get this stuff organized before we head back to Casper."

"Right, let's storm the school armed to the teeth with dangerous weaponry. I'm sure no one will take that the wrong way."

"…good point. We should probably keep these out of sight until we need them. Head up to my room and grab my duffel bag- I think it's in my closet somewhere."

"Gotcha," Tucker nodded, and hurried up the stairs. By the time he returned with the bag, Danny was just about finished slipping into an orange Fenton hazmat suit, wincing from his bruised ribs.

"Dude."

"I know, I know. But jeans and a t-shirt aren't exactly appropriate battle gear, and this is the only one that fit." He zipped up the collar, adjusted the gloves, and started strapping in pistol holsters and a utility belt with extra power-cells.

Danny caught his reflection in the lab's polished steel walls, and only saw an unrecognizable boy in an orange jumpsuit. This wasn't him, he couldn't help but think. It felt all wrong until it occurred to him to put on the goggles. There, he ran a gloved hand through his messy hair. That actually looked a lot better. Natural. Wait..._natural?_ Ugh. Well, he could freak out about turning into his parents later. If they actually survived.

"Hey, what about this?" Tucker picked something up among the scrap Danny had thrown on the floor.

"The Fenton Thermos?" he snorted. "Yeah sure, why not? I'll just clip it onto my belt. Couldn't hurt."

* * *

**I always liked the idea of Danny being a hero without powers. I mean, he's in a family of ghost hunters and has access to all that cool gear, all he really needs is motivation. Besides, it's not like Valerie ever needed superpowers to kick ass. Anyways, thanks for reading, and please review if you're liking how things are going.**

**Thanks again,**

**-Cy**


	8. Day 8: Foley, Tucker Foley

"**Pizza is for Family"**

Unlike a lot of kids, Tucker never asked his parents for a little brother or sister to play with. Once, when he was five, his parents sat him down and explained that he was going to be a big brother. His dad started baby-proofing everything in the house and his mom spent a lot of time making clothes for their "new addition." Tucker fumed at the sudden lack of attention. Wasn't he good enough? Who were they to just up and make this decision? No one had asked ___him_if he wanted to be a big brother!

Except…after a couple of months his mom took him aside one day and told him with tears in her eyes that his little sister wouldn't be coming after all. He didn't understand how a baby could get lost on her way over to them, but it was clear that his mom was really sad about it. Since she was always happy when she was knitting new clothes, Tucker decided to gather up some of his mom's sewing things, brought them to her, and said he wanted to help her sew too.

He knew he said the right thing when she smiled at him for the first time in weeks, sat him on her lap, and started his first lesson with needle and thread. It was hard at first, but she said he had "clever little fingers" and he ended up really liking it. Got to be pretty good at it, too. Even the times the other boys at school beat him up for it, Tucker never once regretted making his momma smile.

When he got older and understood what really happened, Tucker didn't dwell much on what could have been. He had never really wanted a sibling because as far as he was concerned, he already had a brother. And a sister in which they shared nothing in common and argued with each other constantly. So yeah, _definitely_ like a sister.

He couldn't figure out when exactly calling either of them his "best friend" didn't seem to fit right, anymore. Because the other kids at school threw around the word "friend" like it was nothing. Bedazzled it and put it in "best friends forever" collages until it was meaningless.

You don't face a pathological fear of hospitals for a friend.

You don't storm a dragon's castle, break into a ghost prison, or fly through a crazy billionaire's mansion for a friend.

You don't mention the dark things. A future that never was. A lying pick-up artist. A brief stint as a power-mad Egyptian tyrant.

You did it for family.

"So, what do you feel like after patrol?" Tucker asked, checking email on his PDA

Bored, Sam juggled the Fenton Thermos and shrugged. "I dunno. Pizza? Luigi's is open late."

"I'm game. Half meat-lovers half veggie?"

"But of course," she looked up at the sky. "Hey Danny! Hungry?"

Getting a surprised yell as an answer, Sam and Tucker casually took two steps back so Danny could barrel past and smash painfully into the brick wall next to them.

"Hey guys."

"Hey," Sam nodded. "Pizza?"

"Half meat half veggie?"

"You know it," Tuck said.

"Gimmie two minutes." he told them, braced against the wall, and launched himself back into the fight.

_"Whelp! I will hang your head on my wall!"_

"Is there a way you could tweak that suit to power down your 'Creepy' levels?" Danny asked, nimbly dodging a cluster of rockets.

"Hey Skulker!," Tucker yelled. "Have considered getting a singing rubber fish instead?" Grinning, he raised a hand up to the sky. "Danny! Up high!"

Phantom swooped in, low and fast, and swiped an intangible hand through Tucker's. "Ghost five!"

Sam shook her head. "You two are such dweebs."

"You're just jealous 'cause you can't even touch that."

"Neither could you, he was___intangible_!_"_

"Semantics," Tucker waved at her dismissively. Hearing another surprised yell, he took two steps forward so Skulker could fly past him and crash into that same spot on the wall. "Ooh, Sam!" he held out his hands like a catcher. "Thermos!"

"No way! I got thermos duty tonight!"

"But you got him last time!"

"Fair is fair," Skulker groaned from his indentation on the wall.

Sam rolled her eyes, but tossed it over anyways. "Oh sure, take his side…"

Just as Tucker uncapped the thermos and powered it up, Skulker held out a hand. "Wait, wait!"

"What?"

"…could ___I _perhaps have some pizza as well?"

"Not after what you did last time. Now you get in here and think about what you've done."

Skulker's tired sigh was drowned out by the rush of the thermos pulling him in like a big, ugly dust bunny. Whirling it like a six-shooter, Tucker blew the smoking end and twisted the lid back on. "Don't ya hate it when someone tries to be the fourth wheel?"

**Tucker is an awesome character, and it's sort of a bummer we never got to see more episodes with him and family life. And I suppose I should apologize for the all the sad I threw at you in the beginning of this but...nah. **

**Thanks for reading and reviews always appreciated!**

**-Cy**


	9. Day 9: Sam

_"__**Skips a Generation"**_

Love had to be the most convoluted emotion ever. It was the only explanation how Sam could love her mom and dad and still couldn't stand to be in the same room with them.

She honestly didn't know what Danny had to complain about. Sure, his parents were ghost hunters, but thanks to Freakshow they knew that when the time came and he was ready to tell them the truth, they'd accept him, ghost half and all.

Her parents already knew the real her. And it felt like they spent every spare second trying to find a way to _change _her. She couldn't even come home at night without her dad giving her the fifth-degree and her mom thinking she was on drugs, having sex, practicing witchcraft, or whichever "special teen report" was on the news that week.

That night, she came home from night-patrol with a few bruises on her arm from the Box Ghost. Suddenly she was either into violent mosh pits at warehouse raves or she had a secret abusive boyfriend. Their "talk" escalated from concerned tones to raised voices until Sam finally couldn't take it anymore and stormed out of the kitchen.

She was so furious she almost ran right into her Grandma's scooter on her way up to her room. "Oh God, Gran, I'm sorry. I didn't mean-we didn't wake you, did we?"

"Oh, you know me," she waved Sam's concern away. "Always a night-owl. Is everything alright, ___bubeleh__?_"

_'Yeah,' _she said in her head. '_Everything's fine_.' Instead she sighed and stared at the floor, just feeling so damn tired. "Sometimes I wonder how I ended up in this family, ___Bubbe.__"_

"Well, you know what I always say…"

"If God lived on earth people would break his windows?"

"No, the ___other_thing I always say."

"Sleep faster, we need the pillows?"

"Not that one either."

"It's the carpenter's fault for building the bed?"

"Wow, I say a lot of stuff, don't I?" she marveled. "No, the ___real_thing I always say is that 'a black hen can lay a white egg too.' Or I guess in this case a white hen layed a black egg."

"And then the mother hen tries to paint it all white and pretty?"

"Sometimes," her gran replied honestly. "Did you have a nice night out with your friends?"

Grandma Manson had a habit of abruptly changing subjects during a conversation so no one but her could ever know what exactly they were ___really_talking about. It was like she was some kind of Grand Master of verbal ninjutsu or something. "Huh? Uh…yeah. Just picked up a few interesting looking things at the used bookstore."

She adjusted her glasses to better read the cover. "___Showenhauer's Spectral Beastiarium_? My, that does sound interesting."

Sam gripped the book a little tighter to her chest and glanced over her shoulder on reflex. If her mother were to find out she had that particular book the witchcraft accusations would no doubt return with a vengeance. "Just doing a little…private research."

"On ghosts?"

"Well…yeah. Danny's parents are ghost hunters, and what with all the times we've had ghosts come into our school and that army of skeletons invading the whole town, I thought it'd be good to learn some more about them."

"Can't argue with that," Grandma Manson nodded thoughtfully. "I guess we're lucky to have a family of ghost hunters and a ghost-boy to look after us."

"Ghost boy?" Sam stiffened momentarily with panic. "You mean Da-Phantom? You don't think he's…Public Ghost Enemy Number One or something?"

"Like what that fruit-loop mayor says about him?" she scoffed. "Heck, no. Way I see it, that boy has probably saved our keisters more times than we probably know. Whatever they say about him, all I care about is that he keeps my granddaughter safe." For just a moment, Sam thought she saw a mischievous twinkle in her eye. "At your school, I mean. He protects you and your classmates from all those ghosts at school, doesn't he?"

Sam felt herself relax. "Yeah. Yeah he does."

"Not too bad looking, either," she cracked a wicked grin.

Sam shuddered. "Ugh! ___Gran!_That is wrong on so many levels!"

"What?" she said innocently. "Is it the whole 'dead and a ghost' thing?Cause I already got a foot in the grave as it is, that's gotta be close enough."

"I love you ___Bubbe,_but I have to go and take a long shower so I can scrub that image from my brain ___forever.__"_

Just as she turned to leave, the Grand Master said one last thing offhand, "Y'know, I remember when you first brought that Fenton boy over here. He was eight- poor thing was so shy. He's turned out to be a handsome young man, hasn't he, Samantha?"

"Gran…" Sam groaned.

"Bit clueless though," she added. Staring at each other for a span, grandmother and granddaughter ended up breaking into a fit of giggles.

—

"You know what was the only good thing about going into the future?" Tucker asked the next day at lunch. "We know what Valerie's gonna look like in ten years."

Danny spied the part-time ghost hunter several tables away eating a bag lunch by herself. "Oh yeah," he smiled fondly. "That G.I. Jane haircut. How could I forget?"

Sam carefully bookmarked the _Beastiarium's _second chapter and slapped Danny's back playfully, breaking him out of his hormonal daydream. "Older women, huh? Well it's your lucky day, out my grandma thinks you're kinda hot."

"AAAAAAAAH!"

**I think everyone can agree Sam's grandma is freaking awesome. She's hella fun to write, plus it was an excuse to look up Yiddish sayings, which are hilarious. I was this close to using "If my Grandma had wheels, she'd be a wagon" but I couldn't find a way to have it fit into the conversation. Thanks for reading, and be sure to drop a review to feed the hungry writer!**

**Until next time,**

**-Cy**


	10. Day Ten: Western

"**The Resurrection of Bronco Billy"**

"Okay…pull!"

Tucker yanked the lever, launching a pair of spinning clay disks across the barn.

Danny spun about, poncho a swirl of black and white, and shot them out of the with air with two ecto-beams fired from his fingers like a gunslinger.

"Pull!"

Working another set of levers, Tucker fired off two more launchers at the other end of the lab. The plates rocketed straight towards Danny's face so quickly he could almost make out the childish ghost faces painted on them before dispatching them with a one-two shot from his imaginary pistols.

"Come on, dazzle me!"

More launchers heaved themselves out of floor and wall panels, filling the air with a flurry of clay disks that flew at him from every direction. Danny leapt high and stood on empty air, taking out a pair of targets at opposite directions, then crisscrossed his arms to blast another two. Spinning 'round, he took off his black stetson with a flourish and threw it like a discus, where it abruptly changed direction mid-air and began hunting the fragile plates like a thing possessed.

"Now you're just showboatin'," Tucker accused.

"Just havin' a little fun, Tuck," Danny said, twisting his arm behind his back and managed a trick shot for the last target. Awful smug with himself, Danny lifted up his hand and caught his cowboy hat as it finished its victory circuit around the barn. "Good work, ghost-hat."

"You're getting to be pretty good at that," Tucker said."These contraptions your Dad built for practice shootin' work pretty well."

"A mite more useful than that runaway wagon with the motor that drove itself off a cliff."

"Or the Fenton Ecto-Incandescent," Tucker said, and the two boys spared a glance at the work table where a light bulb glowed an eerie green and shuddered with the faint whispers of suffering souls.

"I hate that thing," Danny declared.

The Fenton Farm didn't do much in the way of farming, anymore. With the the exception of Spooky, Danny's cloud-white horse, his parents had converted most of the stables into a workshop for all manner of ghostly experiments. He could see how a few of the folks back in town could get to thinking there was something wicked going on- most people see queer green lights flashing at a farmhouse in the distance, their first instinct is not to assume that ___science _was happening.

The bank of target launchers folded themselves back into their hiding places as Tucker reset each of the levers. "So I was shoppin' in town yesterday and heard about some newcomers that pulled in talking about a demon metal-man trying to pull a robbery on 'em."

"That right?" Danny mused. "That story maybe include the dramatic arrival of a handsome hero that saved the day and chased off the rotten scoundrel?"

"Nah, just more stuff about that crazy ghost kid, what's his name again? Bronco Billy, wasn't it?"

"Your mouth-parts is making all manner of stupid noises again, Tuck. Might wanna talk to a doctor 'bout that."

Tucker continued to have a good laugh at his expense while Danny did his best to steer the subject away from what so-called newspapers had gone to call the local ghost-hero. "The thing I can't figure for the life of me is what Skulker was doin' holding up a train-car like a proper robber. I mean, what's a ghost want with people-money?"

"I dunno," Tucker shrugged. "Where does a ghost get to building a steam-powered suit of armor?

"I try not to dwell on more than one unanswerable question at a time," Danny said. "By the way, I had to make the dramatic exit fightin' off Skulker- were the folks okay when the train got to town?"

"Well, some of them were right confused until we explained the situation to them- which of course only confused 'em further. A few others were just scared witless and kissin' their crosses."

Danny shrugged. "Guess some people just don't take to Amity."

"They don't like it, they could always just keep goin' west 'till they hit water."

They both jumped at the expected knock on the barn door.

"Quick!" Danny told Tucker. "Pretend to look busy."

"Like usual, then," he saluted and grabbed a broom.

The knocking continued as Danny crossed the barn. Halfway there rings of the light swept across his body, wiping away the figure of the white-haired, black clad ghost-cowboy into a normal, messy-haired boy in patchwork farm clothes and beaten leather apron.

Danny Fenton unbolted the barn door and pulled it open, and almost yelped in surprise.

The young lady waiting on the door surveyed him with inquisitive, violet eyes, and the severity of her dress threw Danny off some. The black blouse and smart purple lapel vest was proper enough for a funeral, but her and black skirt was scandalously short enough to show ankle. Her dark hair, neatly tucked back in a bun, was covered by a black, flat-top derby hat made for riding.

Danny blinked dumbly at the lady, unsure whether he should offer his condolences, blush, or call a preacher. Such an unusual woman would be utterly unforgettable- which is exactly why Danny recalled her instantly from the day before. On the train.

Of course, as he was now, she there was no way she could recognize ___him._

"Uh…may I help you, ma'am?"

"Yes," the lady said, her gloved hands smoothing out her skirt before she picked up a black leather case lying on the dirt next to her. "I was looking for Fenton Works." She looked around the shabby barn-house dubiously. "…would this be it?"

"Yes ma'am. Fenton Works: we'll shoe your horse, fix your wagon, and then hunt down the doggone ghost that spooked your horse. At least, that's what the sign says." he nodded up, indicating the bright yellow board above the door adorned with a smiling cartoon likeness of Jack Fenton.

The sign seemed to do little to alleviate her. "I…see. Would the purveyors happen to be available? I have some business I'd like to discuss."

"Well, that would be my folks, actually, and they're off hunt-I mean fixin' up Mr. Lancer's schoolhouse back in town. But I'd be glad to help you if I can."

He stepped aside and opened the door wider to admit her. She walked briskly past him and almost dropped her bag in surprise.

Outside, the barn house was a sad sight. Its wooden boards were crooked and bent, it creaked ominously at the slightest wind, and it was in powerful need of repainting. This was mostly due his parents having devoted all their attention to its inner workings. Tables were full of vials of colorful chemicals, expensive brass microscopes, tall metal towers that shot sparks of electricity between each other, half-built ghost hunting machines, even one of those new Dutch "writing balls" that let a person ___type_missives quicker than could be written by hand.

Danny chuckled. "Like the sign says: Fenton Works. Best ghost hunters in the Territory."

"Also the ___only_ghost hunters in the Territory," Tucker pointed out.

"I'm Danny Fenton, by the way, and that there's Tucker. He's an old family friend we hired on."

"Ma'am," Tucker tipped his faded red flat-cap, then went back to sweeping up all the broken clay scattered about.

Getting her wits back, the lady grabbed Danny's hand and shook it in a very unladylike fashion. "Samantha Manson, but you can just call me Sam."

Tucker snorted.

"I have to say," she said, still taking in the lab. "I heard quite a few interesting tales from the townsfolk about this place, but I never imagined…" she walked over to a table and examined an unfinished brass device that resembled something between a pistol and a lantern.

While her back was turned, Danny wordlessly motioned Tucker to throw a sheet over the Ecto-Incandescent. "I know it all looks awful queer, but there's nothing sorcerous about it. It's just science, like a camera or a locomotive."

"You don't need to try and convince me there are no little demons making these things work. We have scientists back in the big city that play with lighting you can fit in a room. I'm used to the spectacle of mechanical marvels, Mr. Fenton."

"Well, technically there ___are_captive ghosts powerin' a few things in here, but don't let that get spread around. Last thing we want is the townsfolk to think we're using the souls of their departed to keep our lights on."

A little laughed escaped her at the joke, and Danny chuckled nervously while eldritch tongues murmured beneath a white sheet. "So…Ms. Manson, what is it exactly that brings you here?"

Her friendly smile made his chest flutter uncomfortably. "Please, just Sam. I hear Ms. Manson and think my mother's lurking behind me."

Danny felt a heat kiss his ears. "Okay. Sam. Was there something I could do for you?" He smirked. "Broken wagon? Reshoe your horse?"

"Well…it's just that," she took another wide look at the lab, then took a steadying breath and asked, "Have you ever actually ___seen_a ghost?"

"More than I'd care to, honestly."

His quick, thoughtless answer seemed exactly what she needed. "Well yesterday I was introduced to ___two_and can't for the life of me sort out what to do with myself."

"This…wouldn't happen to be about that business on the train that happened recently?" At her surprised look he quickly explained, "I just heard it 'round town. News travels fast."

"I'll bet. One moment I'm sitting on a train, watching the land go by, and the next some metal man with green fire in his eyes comes through the roof like it was a thin curtain and starts demanding everyone's valuables."

"Let me guess," Danny said. "Sounded like a big grandfather clock when he moved? Shot steam exhaust out his back? Pontificated on the subject of his huntin' skills?"

"You know him?"

"We've…met. He's called Skulker- what you saw was just a mechanical clockwork body he possess- what with him being a puny little snotball. He likes to poach folk's game or steals cattle when he gets bored."

"Well, just as that 'Skulker' comes to my seat looking to poach my parents wallet and jewels, this young…cowboy all in black comes flying in and starts fighting off the robbing scoundrel."

"Cowboy in black, huh?" Tucker said behind Danny, making him jump. "Snow white hair and glowing green eyes?"

"That's the fellow."

Danny silently fumed as Tucker threw and arm around his shoulder. "Lucky you, Miss, you managed to meet the town's local ghost-wrangling, ghost hero, Bronco Billy."

"Bronco Billy?" She laughed. "What kind of name is that for a ghost?"

"Your guess is as good as anyone's," Tucker shrugged, giving Danny a sidelong look of mischief. "Just what he calls himself."

"Say there, Tuck," Danny growled through his grit teeth. "Didn't my folks ask you to clean out Spooky's pen today?"

"Nope. Don't rightly recall."

"So this Bronco Billy," Sam went on, not noticing the murderous look Danny was giving his beaming partner. "He's a ghost that fights other ghosts? Wouldn't that be bad for business?"

"Not in Amity," Tucker said. "Plenty of ghosts to go around."

"Are there really that many ghosts here?" she asked, suddenly worried.

"Well, they're mostly the same ghosts that just come back," Danny assured her. "Is that why you're here? If you're looking for some remedies to keep ghosts away, my father grows these flowers that'll repel any spirit within twenty feet of 'em, but they're a bit hard to grow in this climate and tend to lose a lot of their potency when they dry out in the sun…."

"Well, not exactly," she shuffled cagily, weighing some internal debate. "Listen, Mr. Fenton-"

"Please," Danny smiled. "Danny's fine."

"Okay," she smiled back briefly. "Danny. Could I be frank with you?"

"Much of a man's name is Sam," Tucker chortled to himself, still leaning on Danny's shoulder.

Sam and he both turned and leveled a glare at Tucker. Wilting under their combined menace, he detached himself from Danny and announced. "I'll be in Spooky's stable…"

"I didn't find this place by accident, Danny," she confessed. "I've had an interest in ghosts and all things weird for years. Word of all the hauntings in Amity have made it back east, and the name 'Fenton' gets mentioned more than once in a few circles. When my Father told us we'd have to be moving out to the Territories, I was actually pleased. Mind you, I expected the stories had gotten awfully exaggerated by the time they reached the city, but I thought at least there would be some interesting distractions. Imagine my surprise when I'm almost robbed by one ghost, then get rescued by another before even arriving into town."

"Uh…I'm not sure I understand what it is you-"

The young lady Manson crossed her arms sternly and gave Danny a look that he'd only ever gotten from his own mother and sister. Sharp, iron-edged, inarguable. That was when Danny fully fathomed this was no prim city girl doll-eyed with stories of the wild frontier she'd read from two-cent trash novels. This was not another Paulina. "I want you to teach me about ghost hunting," she said brusquely. "I want to learn everything you know about them. Where they come from, what they want, how to fight them if the need came…"

"Well, I appreciate your candor Miss- I mean Sam," Danny said carefully. "And as much as I find your interest awful refreshin', I don't think it'd exactly be…proper for me to me to teach you that sort of thing. Ghost huntin' ain't no place for a young lady-"

A loud, exaggerated cough interrupted him, sounding as though it came from somewhere around the horse stable.

"…is what I ___would _say if my momma didn't have the ability or inclination to beat me to death and then start again on my ghost were I to say things of that nature," Danny finished.

"Good recovery," Sam commended him.

* * *

**I love ghost-hat. Maybe I should do a spin-off. The adventures of Ghost-Hat: flying 'round the West righting wrongs and giving the bad guys really bad hat-hair!**

**I had a ton of fun on this one, mostly just to do all the research on clothes, technology, and speech patterns. Finally, a chance to use my degree! Okay, okay, it was just an excuse to watch Firefly again, really. The fic is actually named after a Western from the seventies, plus I thought 'Bronco Billy' would be a good name for the townsfolk to call him- like 'Inviso-Bill.' Maybe someday I'll do more with this little AU, but I'm equally tempted to try at another period AU- like the roaring twenties. But I get ahead of myself. Onwards!**

**Thanks for reading, please review if you can- I always appreciate feedback!**

**-Cy**


	11. Day Eleven: Favorite Ghost

**"Divergence"**

_**(Spoiler warnings for Ultimate Enemy and Reign Storm)**_

Clockwork did not experience time the same way humans or other ghosts did. To him, everything that will ever happened has already happened and was in fact happening at this moment very, very soon.

"I don't."

"What?" Danny said, lost.

Clockwork blinks distractedly, as if only just noticing Danny, Sam, Tucker, and their bulging backpacks. "I said I don't have ___time _for this. I'm trying to oversee all of time and space, not run an after-school study group."

"But you're the G_host _of Time," Tucker pointed out. "Don't you have like, all the time you ever need?"

Sam elbowed Tucker in the side to silence him. Phasing into his elderly shape, Clockwork glowered at them.

Danny clutched his notebook tightly. _"____Please__, _Clockwork? This test is a huge chunk of my grade and I've been trying to study for it all week but every time I try there's always a damn ghost attack. Your lair's the only place we can think of where we won't be bothered."

"Plus it's a history test," Tucker said. "If we get stuck, we can always just ask y-ow! Will you ___stop _that!"

Now a child, Clockwork looked down at him and watches time diverge: He says 'No,' Danny receives an 'D' on his exam when they are passed back to the class in two weeks. His self confidence has already been a shaky roller-coaster for months and the trouble he gets into with his parents and teacher precipitates a downward spiral.

He sighs, already knowing that thirty-two minutes in ___their _perception of the future the three children are sitting on his floor surround by open books and jotting down notes, already on question eleven of their review packet. Two weeks from now Danny stands up in the middle of class and 'whoo-hoo's happily at the 'B' on his test.

Clockwork shifts into his 'adult' form and says wearily, "…very well."

"Whoo-hoo!"

Thirty-six minutes have passed and the three laugh at question twelve and call it a freebie. The answer they give is incorrect, though only because it is a trick question. Paul Revere never actually rode down heavily patrolled roads shouting warnings to what amounted to a rebel insurgency- it was quite the covert affair. Clockwork decides not to correct them. History rarely had anything to do with what actually happened.

He tried not to look directly at them, not that it helped. Even with his back turned, Clockwork saw their timelines. No, timeline was a word that hinted at something still progressing, unfinished. He saw their lives in totality- completed works that told an entire story. Birth, childhood, lives, love, age, death. The three of them were so…integral to the each other so much of the overlap was like one story, instead of three.

They are six years old. A girl in a grass-stained dress marches up to two shy boys smaller than the others and smiles with missing baby teeth. "I'm Sam! Who're you guys?"

A boy with thick glasses and a red ball-cap shrinks from her shyly. "I'm Tucker."

"Sam?" the other boy frowns. "But Sam's a boy's name."

"No it's not. I'm a girl and my name is Sam, so it's___can't_be just for boys."

He ponders on her logic and shrugs with a child's open mind. "Oh yeah, I guess that makes sense. I'm Danny, do you wanna play with the ghost toys my dad made?"

He lets them study and focuses his viewing screen tracking four portals that opened from the Ghost Zone to different points of time and space. Thankfully, three of them exist for only a fraction of a second before collapsing, and the last is only stable for forty-two seconds before closing as well. He double checks and ensures that no drooling inter-dimensional ghost-creature wandered into 1882 Alsace-Lorraine.

The half-ghost looks like an ordinary twelve year old girl, but Clockwork knows that she is only five months old. She is shivering because snow from the Ice-Age is still stuck on her hoodie. She rubs her shoulders and says with chattering teeth, "N-not that I-I d-don't ah-ah-preciate the help, but who the-h-heck are you and what was t-t-that thing? The d-d-door to Hoth?"

The boy who is both her twin and not her twin stands in that exact spot seven months from now. "It's…complicated," Clockwork tells them.

Clockwork mutters, "Fiedrich von Steuben" seconds before Sam reads aloud, "Who was the Major General that helped train the Continental Army into an effective fighting force?"

Sam and Tucker laugh loudly when Danny suggested Major Generals Gilbert and Sullivan. There is a mark on his timeline like a surgical scar that makes Clockwork brow crease.

The boy has been sitting on edge of the king-sized bed in his new room for hours. His luggage has not been unpacked and is piled in the same spot since he'd arrived at Vlad's mansion. The photo of everything he lost has not left his hand for three days.

He just wants it all to stop.

If Clockwork changes his perspective, their timelines alter like the shifting image on a holographic baseball card. He had explained it to Danny as a parade, winding paths and possibilities. What he left out for the sake of brevity and sparing a fourteen year old the boggling mathematics of quantum mechanics and universal wavefunctions was that not only did the other paths exist, each of them had already happened/were happening/will happen.

Clockwork saw them all, an infinite number of possibilities occurring all at the same time. One universe's 'what if' as another's reality.

Time diverges. Danny Fenton chooses not to step into the portal and is an ordinary teenager whose town is slowly being overrun with ghosts.

He is down in the Fenton Works lab dressed in an orange hazmat suit with an armory's worth of anti-ghost weapons strapped to him. A machine hums as it powers up and he pulls a switch. His goggles flare from the flashes like lighting. A burnt blue ribbon tied around his forearm stands out against the orange.

He dials up the power levels on the machine and Spectra screams louder.

Clockwork shifts back into a child. He turns away but still sees the boy and the girl sitting a bit closer than they had been two minutes ago, seven minutes ago, forty-two minutes ago.

They are seventeen. She is on top of him and he is laying on the bed, shaking with the fear of a boy who has not made love before. Her fingers twine his and she kisses him gently.

Her locker is full of newspaper clippings and photographs about the town ghost-hero, Phantom. She considers her interest less selfish than Sanchez's stupid crush. She closes her locker and goes down the hall, pointedly ___not_looking at the Fenton's son as she passes. Family full of heartless butchers.

Together, the white haired boy and girl equal about one half-ghost. His name is Jack and her name is different things at different times.

"Hey Clockwork," she peers over at the dented cylinder on a pedestal that keeps it locked in Time. "Why do you have an old Fenton Thermos here?"

He answers her at the same time he answers her mother twenty-five years in the past. "Nothing you need to concern yourself with."

Clockwork hears a cell phone ringing in the Ghost King's throne room. He checks one of the half-dozen watches strapped to his arm. Humans are still keeping records with clay tablets in the desert.

"The Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep," Nocturne runs a finger over the binding hieroglyphs on its surface. "My best piece of work, if I do say so myself."

"Forever is not as long as you think, Brother," Clockwork tells him.

Pandora looks alarmed. "Are you saying he will be freed someday?"

"Don't worry so much, Dora," He looks over his shoulder and sees a fourteen-year old child in a black exoskeleton standing up to the King of Ghosts. "Everything will turn out fine."

"Now do you understand?" One of the observants asked.

He understood plenty. For being so much eyeball, the observants were laughably short-sighted. They thought their foresight made them all-knowing, as if the future were just a series of events that simply hadn't happened yet. Idiots.

"Yes, Danny Phantom grows up to be the most evil ghost on the planet. What do you want ___me_to do about it?"

"You are the master of time, Clockwork. Isn't it obvious?"

The only thing obvious to him was the magnitude of their blunder. They saw a possible future in which Danny Fenton loses everyone in the world he loves, and in trying to stop the crippling pain of his grief ends up destroying himself and creating the very monster that kills family and friends in the first place. Of course, the explosion at the Nasty Burger only happens because of the observants insist Clockwork send someone to eliminate the boy. In their trying to avoid the a terrible future, they in fact cause it.

Amateurs.

Time diverges. Clockwork refuses to help them, and they resort to less reliable methods of time travel to accomplish their goal. The damage their bungling causes is arguably worse than the future they were trying to stop.

He agrees. To repair the damage and restore time he'll have to put on a little show to placate them.

The child of two ghosts he has summoned for the task will cease to exist when the matter is finished, but he knows she will have a chance to be born in a better set of circumstances. "Could you be a dear and dance a little dance for us?"

Clockwork checks a pocket watch with four hands spinning around a face with tiny scribbled runes instead of numbers. He waves his hand and his monitor shows him a British merchant ship riding the waves of a rough storm in 1741. The crew is more in a panic about the ghostly sea serpent three times as long as their ship.

The beast roars, and Samatha jerks up from her notebook points at the monitor. "What the hell is ___that_thing?"

His voice echoes twenty-five years into the future. "Nothing you need to concern yourself with," he tells mother and daughter simultaneously.

Time diverges. The creature from the ghost zone pulls the ship down into the depths, killing all one hundred and eighty-seven crew members. Lives are changed, decedents are never born and people that should not exist ripple through time and change the world simply by _existing. _Clockwork presses the button on his staff.

******Time Out**

The ship stops halfway up a wave that is as still as a hill; the serpent's toothy maw hangs open to take the first bite.

A duplicate of Clockwork dressed as an eighteenth-century colonial soldier flies through the portal into 1741 and taps his staff on the ghost-serpent's scales. A portal like a turning clock spins its hands, and the creature is sent back to its proper time and place in the ghost zone.

******Time In**

The ship and the storm resume and the sailors will have nothing but wild tale to tell when they make it back to port.

Danny stands next to him as Clockwork's duplicate returns and fuses back into him. "Wait a minute…this is your ___job, _isn't it? You keep an eye on all those crazy time portals in the Ghost Zone and like…manage history."

His hood keeps the boy from seeing his smile. His grades really would be better if he didn't have ghosts to worry about. "I like to keep things from getting out of hand…unless you would have preferred Hitler successfully invading England and the Beatles to never exist."

"Oh. Yeah. Uh…good call."

Tucker raises his hands like he's dispelling a cloud. "Whoa, whoa whoa, stop it there. If you're suppose to be 'overseeing time and space' and what-not, where were you when Vlad was running around history with the Infi-Map?"

"Rome's been burned several times throughout history, and a bunch of puritans seeing witches and ghosts just gets written off as three had it under control."

Danny frowns in confusion. "So…that was all ___supposed_to happen? But…how can you tell the difference between stuff you have to fix and stuff you…leave alone?"

There's a very young, very unique timeline linked to his, a species away from paternal and fraternal. "It's…complicated," Clockwork tells both Danny and Danielle. He glances irritably at Tucker with the corner of his eye. "And would you please ___get_that, already?"

"Get what?" Tucker says, and jumps when his phone rings loudly in his pocket.

"That."

"Wow Tuck, you have a signal here?" Sam says. "Who's your carrier?"

The Ghost Zone is young and they are younger. Somehow, the Seven of them have banished the last of the eldritch monstrosities to slumber in the deepest pits of the Zone. Their forms defied mortal geometries and sanity, so it was a good thing mortals do not exist yet.

A grinning, white-faced ghost in battered black armor slaps Nocturne on the shoulder. "We've done it, dear sibs, victory at long last! Do any of you realize what this ___means?_We can change this world however we wish, and we can do it _together!"_

Without the Elder Things warping Time with their corruption, the entire Time Stream is perfectly clear to Clockwork for the first time. He sees both the fresh wound on Pariah's eye and the patch that will be there eons in the future.

No longer young, Pariah Dark faces Clockwork and the remaining Five. His old, affectionate smile now a hateful snarl. The Crown of Fire paints flicking green and shadow on the hard creases of his face. "I thought you didn't interfere in things that don't affect your precious time-stream, ___Brother!"_

Clockwork's eyes follow the inevitable course of his endless conquest. "I don't."

"What?" Danny said, lost.

"I said I don't have ___time _for this. I'm trying to oversee all of time and space, not run an after-school study group."

It is fourteen months ago and the observants have the gall to lecture ___him_about his responsibilities. An entire cancerous timeline is contained within the thermos he's holding like a curled, poisonous weed.

"When I extended an invitation for you to visit whenever you wished," Clockwork pointed at the books and papers littering the floor of his lair, "This was not exactly what I had in mind."

"But…wouldn't you have know this would happen from the beginning?" Sam pointed out.

"Yeah," Danny realised, and looked at the grumpy ghost of time with a teasing grin. "You ___like_us, don't you?"

"…what."

"It makes total sense! You helped me with my future, showed me how to save Sam and Tuck in some total Yoda-way so I would figure it out on my own. You ___totally_like us."

Clockwork crossed his arms. "That's absurd."

"Just admit it: you like having us around here. You probably get a little lonely watching over all of time without anyone to talk to."

"I exist throughout all time and space. I don't get _lonely."_

"Riiiiight," Tucker rolled his eye. "Because you don't have ___any_time to help some stupid teenagers study for a test…"

"You big softy, you." Sam cooed.

Clockwork narrowed his eyes at them.

"Are you trying giving me the scary eyes?" Danny chuckled. "Sorry man, but you're gonna have to do a lot better than-" he finished his sentence to the Fenton ghost port. "…that." Somehow, they were back in Fenton Works with all of their homework meticulously packed in their book bags. "I think we might have annoyed him a little."

"We just annoyed a near-all powerful ghost that exists across all of time and space." Sam said slowly."I don't know if we should be horrified with ourselves or give each other a high-five for managing it."

"Probably both."

"___I _think we're growing on him," Tucker said proudly.

* * *

**Apologies if this fic was confusing. I pretty much took the idea of linear time and twisted it into an amusing balloon animal, like a puppy or a giraffe. Has your mind been suitably BLOWN? If so, then sorry about the mess.**

**Clockwork was a cool ghost, voiced by David Carradine, why _wouldn't_ he be? And I can't have been the only one to notice that him, Nocturne, and the Ghost King all have a scar on the same eye. Clearly I took that small similarity and ran with it. After all, those ancient ghosts that beat Pariah the first time had to be heavy hitters, them being his "siblings" of a sort seemed poetic, in a Greek mythology kind of way.**

** Again, sorry about the weirdness of this one- hope it was coherent enough. Don't worry, Time will be flowing in its usual course by the next chapter. Hopefully. I need to consult with my Doctor. **

**Thanks for reading, and as always don't be afraid to leave a review before you go!**

**-Cy**


	12. Day Twelve: Maddie and the Kids

**"Playdates"**

"What have you ___done _to my daughter?"

"I haven't done anything to her," Maddie stood her ground, arms crossed. "She and the boys had a water balloon fight and she borrowed some clothes while we put hers in the dryer."

"She's dressed like a boy!" Samantha's mother pointed an accusing finger down at her daughter, hair still wet and in a pair of Danny's old jeans and a raggedy black t-shirt about a size too big.

"She looks like a seven-year-old to me Pam, not a doll."

"I specifically included a change of clothes for her!" Pamela Manson said. "Why isn't she wearing them?"

"Because she didn't ___want _to wear them! I had to coax her out of a tree by promising to find her something other than pink!"

"Is that what you call parenting? Letting your children call the shots?"

"Oh you did ___not _just-"

Jasmine interrupted them by tugging on Pamela's dress. "It's okay, Ms. Manson," she informed her helpfully. "Sam is just at that age where she is trying to develop her own sense of identity and is rebelling against traditional gender roles because she feels they're restricting her self-expression."

Maddie smirked at the gobsmacked expression on Pam's face. "…how old are you?"

"Nine and a half," Jazz replied.

"Well," Pam looked over at her daughter again disapprovingly. "I suppose I should be grateful you didn't stick in her a jumpsuit."

"For your information, we didn't have any junior sizes in a color she _liked. _And while we're on the subject: YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH JUMPSUITS?!"

"Pam, Maddie, please," Ms. Foley stood between them. "The kids are fine, they all had fun together- no harm done, right?"

"Yeah!" little Tucker agreed, hooking his arm around Sam's shoulder."It was awesome!"

"Can I come back to Danny's tomorrow after school, Mom?" Sam asked. "_Pleeeeeeeeeease?_"

"I'm not certain this is a proper environment for a little girl to be in, Samantha."

"Well excuse _me_," Madeline glared. "But my home is a perfectly appropriate environment to raise children!"

Just as Pamela opened her mouth to reply, a flying green suction-dart latched on to the side of her cheek.

Maddie groaned and covered her face with her palm while her husband ran through the room, Danny riding on his shoulders brandishing a pair of toy pistols. Samantha's now-dry dress was tied around his neck and served as a heroic cape.

"HA-HA! Take ___that, _you sack of putrid ecto…ecto…uh…ghost lady!"

_"Jack!" _Maddie admonished.

"I'm not Jack! I'm a noble steed!"

"Noble steeds don't talk, Daddy!" Danny told him.

"Oops, sorry!"

"Well," Maddie shrugged. "At least he brought us the dress?"

"YOU ALL LOOK LIKE ANTS FROM UP HERE!"


	13. Day Thirteen: Blood Blossoms

**"That Boy Is Poison"**

Stuck with another fifty pages of the Great Gatsby to finish before Lancer's class tomorrow, Sam and Tucker sat reading their yellowed, school-provided copies in Danny's room.

Somewhere around Chapter Four Sam laughed, "Y'know, considering Lancer's making us read a scathing indictment against American decadence and materialism, I'm not sure whether it's hilarious or sad not one of the popular kids are catching on."

Tucker turned a page. "Said the girl with the bowling alley in her basement."

"Hey! You damn well know I never once let parent's money compromise my ideals!"

"I know, I know. Sorry, Sam."

"…It's okay," she signed. "I know you were teasing. I guess I just get a little oversensitive about it some-"

"No, Sam." Tucker put a hand on her shoulder grimly. "I'm _sorry_."

"Huh? What are you talk-" suddenly catching the Odor, she reeled backwards, gagging. "Oh God, Tuck! That is disgusting! What are you, nine? Crack a window or something!"

Danny, floating outside his own window, waved his arms frantically. "No, no, no, I'm out here! You leave this closed!"

Sam started fanning the air with her book. "Well it's not like we can open the door, unless you want your parents spotting the ghost-boy reading F. Scott Fitzgerald hanging outside their son's window!"

"Tucker, it's been two days since the we got the Infi-Map back from Vlad," Danny said, voice slightly muffled by the glass. "Haven't those Blood Blossoms worked their way out of your system yet?"

"Yeah, it was funny throwing Danny out of his room for the first half-hour, but your toxic anti-ghost fumes are even starting to get to _me_."

Tucker scowled. "Oh, I'm sorry. I guess I should have thought of that before eating thirty pounds of the stuff to save _both _your asses."

"You'd have rather been the one about to be burned at the stake for witchcraft?" Sam snapped. "Be my guest, because that wonderful experience has gotten to the top three of my 'worst nightmares ever' list!"

"Come on Sam, that's not fair," Danny chided her. "Imagine if you had to eat your way through a cow's worth of evil anti-ghost tenderloin to save me and Tuck. You'd still do it right?"

"In a heartbeat," she admitted. "Though it'd haunt me forever."

Tucker groaned when his stomach made sick, gurgling noises. "Uh…well look on the bright side, we haven't been attacked by ghosts in a while." He loudly belched out a wisp of familiar red fumes. "Ah, that's better. My insides are now purified."

'Pure' wasn't the word Sam would have picked. A gallon of flower-scented air freshener and bacon mixed with stale cabbage smacked a little closer to accurate.

"…I think I'll just study at the library." Danny waved. "You kids have fun."

"No, wait!" Sam threw open the window and leaned half her body out to the sweet, fresh air outside. "Take me with you!"

* * *

**Literally _every_ story in Danny Phantom involving Blood Blossoms is always horrible, agonizing torment followed by a brutal death. And then there's me, who just decided to say 'screw it' and just made it a fart joke. Fart jokes makes all the scary go away. **

**I apologize for nothing. **


	14. Day Fourteen: Dani

**"Faux"**

Her first memory was the sound of water. A gentle, murmuring white noise while she dreamt of a life that wasn't hers. She lived a weightless existence suspended in translucent green, cradled and surrounded in the embrace of soft fluid.

The day she was born, she woke up frightened by loud noises. Metal things clanged and groaned. There was a hiss. She felt the rush of escaping liquid pull her with it and her glass womb deposited her roughly onto hard ground.

She was a creature of thought and water violently forced into a world of solids. The sensation of touch was at once familiar but alien. She braced her hands on cold metal and vomited ectoplasm until she could only cough and choke. Harsh air invaded her lungs where gentle fluid once was.

The spasms of her stomach reminded her she had insides. The raw tang of acrid chemicals retaught her smell and taste. Her unused muscles ached with weakness. Naked, she curled herself into a ball and shivered.

___"Structural cohesion stable at eighty-three percent, dear-heart. Confirmed viability outside amniotic environment." _The voice was distant but surrounded her, echoing like sounds against her glass enclosure.

The light glaring overhead hurt. She kept her eyes squeezed shut, not seeing her breath come out like a fog but still felt the cold presence settle over her.

"Analysis," It spoke, real and near and inexplicably terrifying.

___"Genetic deviation within acceptable test parameters, sweet-pea. Catalyst Batch-23 appears to have stabilized the maturation process, but caused an unexpected allosomal mutation."_

She risked opening her eyes a sliver and saw a pair of boots, black but intangible, flickering like static. She slowly followed the boots up to a woman's face. Recognition dangled at the edge of her brain.

"'Unexpected mutation,' indeed. Still, a promising step in the right direction."

She reached for her with a slimy hand; watched it phase in and out of transparency like it was trying to mimic her.

She coughed again and whispered a word she knew from her dreams but didn't understand.

"…Mom?"


	15. Day Fifteen: Ectoplasm

**"Sacrifice Your Eyebrows for Science!"**

Three years of graduate research. Seven months toiling away in a cramped, poorly equipped University lab. Twelve hours and five cups of Jack's bad coffee. Finally, a ___result._

Seeing that glowing green substance shift and sway in its glass container like a lava lamp, Maddie finally had vindication. It was ectoplasm. Real-live ectoplasm. They had successfully synthesized what was ten minutes ago a purely theoretical substance that solicited snickers from whoever they mentioned it to.

She was ___right__._

This was big. Curie discovering radium and pioneering nuclear chemistry big. This was an element that was native to another dimension. Hell, they probably just invented a new field of physics. Maddie supposed she should have said something quotable and profound for posterity but all she could think at that moment was _'In your face, Professor Rainey! Whose theories are groundless and whimsical now?!'_

"Ectoplasm, Maddie," Vlad awed. "Actual, real ectoplasm. You really did it!"

_"____We _did it," she said, pulling Jack and Vlad- her boys- into a tight hug. "Now come on, it's stable for now but we have no idea how long this will last in a foreign dimension. Vlad, run measurements with the electrometer. Jack, manage that containment field."

"You got it, babe," Jack said.

The boys off on their tasks, Maddie focused her attention back to their sample. Fascinating. It seemed to be energetic and highly malleable. Instead of staying in any given state for very long, it constantly transitioned between liquid, semi-solid, and gaseous for no observable reason.

Vlad eyed the container warily. "Uh…Maddie? Should it be…___glowing_like that?"

"Hm…well, the Geiger counter isn't reading any raised radiation levels, but then again it could be bombarding us with dangerous particles we don't even have names for, yet."

"Oh, that's comforting," Vlad deadpanned.

"That's why we wear the jumpsuits V-Man!"

"Orange isn't exactly my color, Jack."

"Sweetie," Maddie frowned at the new readings coming up on the meters. "Are you keeping the containment field constant?"

"Yeah, honey-bunch. Just like you said."

"Are you sure? Because it looks like the field is-"

There was a blinding flash of green and a concussive force like an invisible hand shoved Maddie hard across the lab into the side of a counter.

She sat there a few moments to collect herself and blink away the green spots in her vision. The room was thick with smoke and her left ear heard nothing but a high pitched, constant dial-tone.

Vlad groaned and pulled himself upright a few feet from her. "Maddie," he held his head sorely. "Are you hurt?"

"I think I'm okay. Ears are ringing but no obvious injuries. You?"

Vlad felt his chest and limbs like someone checking for their wallet. "Everything seems intact- except for my head…" he rubbed his temples, then paused. "Wait- do I still have my eyebrows?"

She squinted at his face. "You do not."

"Ah. Pity."

A pile of debris shifted as Jack shot upright, hair singed and face blackened. "Yowza! Did anyone see the size of that ecto-fireball? Man, it was like 'bwooosh'! Or maybe 'fwoooom'! Maddie! Vlad! You guys okay?"

"A little banged up, but we're fine, dear."

"What was that, baby-doll? I can't hear your over the fire alarms!"

Maddie looked around the room, then raised an intact eyebrow at Vlad, who shrugged. Evidently he didn't hear any fire alarms either.

"Jack!" Vlad said slowly. "I. Think. You. Might. Have. Some. Hear. Ing. Loss!"

"WHAT?"

They both gave him a thumbs up.

Jack grinned and threw his arms up like he had just made a field goal. "AWESOME!"

"Vlad…"

"Yes, Maddie?"

"Please make a note: exposure to a fluctuating electrical field while in its gaseous state causes ionization into high-energy plasma."

He stared around the ruined lab. "…I'll try and remember that."


	16. Chapter Sixteen: Future

**"Tattletale!"**

There was no doubt it was a party house. People with drinks mingled on the front lawn, more were either coming in or stumbling out, and even across the street their hearts were skipping to match the beat of the thumping bass.

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather catch a movie?" Danny tried.

"Aw come on man!" Tucker pleaded. "When was the last time you and I did something together?"

"Tuck, we _live_ together."

"Yeah, but we've got different classes and midterms and I always feel like the third wheel with you and Sam. I just want it to be the two of us, y'know? Take advantage of some of that star power and have Danny Phantom as my wing-man."

Danny couldn't help but feel a little guilty. The past couple weeks had been pretty hectic. They were all just busy with their own things; Sam had taken on extra credits and Tucker was busy with his computer science courses, even on the weekends it was hard to make time.

"Okay," Danny relented. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to get out and mingle once in a while."

"Sweet! That is what I'm talkin' about." Tucker unzipped his jacket and pulled it open like a superhero changing costume. Underneath he wore a black t-shirt emblazoned with the phantom logo that proclaimed 'I was friends with **'D'** before he was cool.'

"You did not seriously make that yourself."

He cocked his thumb in the direction of the party. "Lest they forget."

—

Inside the house was a sweltering hotbox from too many bodies crammed into too few rooms. His senses were bombarded with the din of loud music, meaninglessly overlapping chatter, the scent of booze sanitizing all the sweat.

Danny didn't know any of these people. He couldn't even figure out how Tuck had even found this place until he heard a familiar voice behind him.

"Well if it isn't Fentonius Maximus!"

"Aw hell..." he groaned, and turned around to face, who else? "Hey, Dash."

Except for trading in the old Casper High Letterman jacket for a sweatshirt with the University colors, he really hadn't change much, especially his scowl. "Nobody told me you were invited to this party," he said. Breaking into a grin, he elbowed Danny's side lightly. "Not that you couldn't just walk into any party you wanted! Ha! Great to see ya Fenton, it's been a while! Can I get you a drink?"

No matter how many years ago high school was, Danny still had not gotten used to 'Dash Baxter, Danny Phantom's Number One Fan'. "Uh…okay. Yeah, I guess. Thanks. Nothing fancy, just a vodka and some sprite."

"You got it, man." Somehow, Dash could make himself heard over the din of the party. "Hey, Brock! How about we get some drinks over here for the guy that saved the goddamn_ world_!"

The entire house all raised their glasses and cheered drunkenly. He always was good at getting a crowd riled up.

Tuck was loving every second of it. "See Danny, what did I say? Star power."

"Oh hey, Foley, didn't see you there," Dash slapped a hand on his shoulder good-naturedly. "You drinking too?"

"You know it! Got any margaritas?"

"Hell yeah, we do! Love those things! People that call 'em a girl drink don't know what they're missing. You guys hang tight, I'll be back in a sec."

Watching Dash work his way through the crowd, Danny said, "That is still so damn weird."

"I think you mean' awesome'," Tucker corrected him.

He was about to respond when he noticed a girl watching him over Tucker's shoulder. Once she saw she had been spotted, she gave him her best, alluring smile and walked towards them. Pale shoulders held up a short black dress on a pair of pencil-thing straps. Her legs look like they went on forever. Sweeping a stray red bang away from her face, she tilted her head. "Oh, hey there Danny…"

"Hey there…attractive girl who definitely is not my awesome but scary girlfriend…"

Tucker threw himself in front of Danny as if he were stepping in the way of a bullet. "Don't worry Dude, I'll take the hit for you."

"You're a selfless hero, Tuck."

—

Working on his third drink, Danny leaned against the kitchen counter and reminded himself that Tucker was having a good time.

It wasn't as bad as he thought it would be. Some people shook his hand, one guy asked for an autograph on his shirt, a few girls got some pictures on their cells. Tucker relished in the attention. Last Danny saw him he was regaling a group a girls with tales of saving Danny Phantom from ghostly hunters with only his wits and an outdated PDA. The shirt turned out to be a good ice breaker, go figure.

He hadn't even needed ghost powers to slip away to the kitchen for a little extra breathing room. Thankfully there was pretty light traffic in there, and the few people sitting at the kitchen table either didn't know who he was or were too drunk to care.

He blamed it on drink number four when he jumped after spotting his own reflection in the kitchen window. A quick flick of the fingers frosted over the glass.

All it had needed was blue skin and longer hair.

"Hey dude, haven't seen you in a bit." He hadn't heard Tucker come in. Then again with the speakers trying to resonate the house into dust it was a miracle he could even hear himself think.

He shook his nearly empty glass. "Just getting a refill."

"Good idea," Tucker said, and started fixing himself another margarita. "Havin' a good time?"

"I am if you are."

"Dude, I got like, twelve meBook invites and six real phone numbers."

"Oh good. Well I hope they were nice guys."

"Ass," Tucker laughed, most of it probably from the margaritas than the bad joke."Damn, they're out of ice," he held up his cup. "You mind?"

"What am I, a walking ice-dispenser?"

"No, you're just my best friend who just so happens to have ice powers."

Letting out a suffered sigh, Danny closed his fist, shook it like he was playing dice, and dropped three perfect ice cups into Tucker's drink.

"Cool. Thanks."

"Can I get you anything else?" Danny asked dryly. "Some fresh appetizers with my meat-vision?"

"Don't you dare joke about that you know better."

Danny chuckled. Head swimming pleasantly from the drinks, he almost didn't catch it when his breath came out chilled.

Tucker stopped dead in place. "Uh…dude? Was that your-?"

Everyone in the kitchen screamed when the fridge and all the cabinets sprung open by themselves and every can, instant meal, and package of ramen flew threw the air and swirled in vortex of college staples.

"Looks like."

The music screeched to a halt and the entire house fell into a panic except for Danny and Tucker, who stayed where they were and sipped their drinks indifferently.

They were, of course, completely unsurprised when a small, blue-skinned ghost with overalls, pigtails and a pink beret materialized in the storm of food and announced, "I am Box Lunch! Daughter of the-"

"We _know_ who you are, Boxy," Tucker said. "We were at your Naming."

"Silence! You will all learn to fear my starch heavy, MSG preserved DOOOOOM!"

"Did you seriously follow us here all the way from Amity?" Danny asked.

"The power of Box Lunch is not beholden to your puny state boundaries!"

Danny crossed his arms and scolded her. "Yeah? Well I know what_ is, _young lady. So you had better put all this stuff back where you found it and march your butt back to the Ghost Zone _right now_ or so help me I will tell your parents you're haunting past your bedtime. At college parties. With alcohol."

Every flying foodstoof froze instantly in midair, and after a moment's consideration, quickly fled back to their respective places the cubbard. In few short seconds, the kitchen was tidier than Danny suspected it had been all semester.

"You have defeated me this time, Tattletale, but you have not seen the last of Box Lunch!" Waving her hands portentously, the girl-ghost floated backwards and phased into the wall for her dramatic exit.

"3…2…1…"

She poked her head back into the room and added, "Oh yeah, I almost forgot: BEWARE!" And promptly vanished again.

"We should have asked her if she had meat-vision," Tucker realized too late.

Very slowly the other guests filtered back into the kitchen, staring at Danny with a collection of awe, fear, and stunned disbelief. Hearing stories of ghosts was one thing- it was another matter entirely to have one come into the room and make the groceries fly around. Danny guessed he shouldn't have been surprised. He wasn't in Amity, anymore.

Besides himself and Tucker, Dash seemed to be the only one who could still form a sentence, go figure. Perks of being attacked by ghosts in high school. "Damn, Fenton, that was awesome! You chased off that ghost without even having to use your powers!"

Danny shrugged, uncomfortable with the gallery of silent stares. "What, her? She's not so bad. Her dad and I go way back."

"Her dad? Wait…but that doesn't…how do ghosts even have kids?"

"We don't know and we will _never_ ask," Tucker replied. "Ever."


End file.
